Mass Effect: Andromeda Features More Than 1,200 Speaking Characters

You'll have plenty of people to talk to in Mass Effect: Andromeda, as the game has over 1,200 NPCs with speaking parts.

Mass Effect games have always had plenty of people for you to talk to, but Mass Effect: Andromeda is taking that to a new level. During a PAX East livestream, creative director Mac Walters said that while Mass Effect 3 had "something like 670 unique characters who would speak to you," Andromeda cranks that number to "over 1,200."

Andromeda producer Michael Gamble elaborated a little more on this. Speaking to PC Gamer, he said, "The lines of dialogue we have in Andromeda is like Mass Effect 2 and 3 combined. So the number of characters is vaster, but the amount of stuff you and that character can talk about is also larger-especially the squad, we definitely focused in on the squad. We made sure the squad was beefy, and developed, and that you could do different things with them and then that information would basically carry through the conversations. That was a large focus. Yeah, in terms of the amount of writing, that was increased, and the number of characters was also increased."

Gamble also said that the 1,200 characters didn't include small roles like shopkeepers, but was counting characters "like one step above that."

Mass Effect: Andromeda launches on March 21 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. If you're an EA or Origin Access member, you'll get access starting on March 16, but what how much of the campaign you can play will be limited.